Chapter 746: A Thousand Years of Tradition
Chapter 729: A Thousand Years of Tradition
There are many small countries in Europe that are able to survive and have a good time, naturally they have their own unique way of survival.
Now Prussia has fallen from the ranks of the powers, want to live a small life nourishing, it is necessary to abandon the previous playground, learn the way of survival of small countries.
Frederick III is very sober, “Prussia and Han merged to establish North Germany, integration of the German region of the many states, control of this newborn country back to the ranks of the powers”, this is just weaving out, to fool the middle-aged boy lies.
In this era of the law of the jungle, there is nothing without strength.
The Kingdom of Prussia, which has lost the Prussian region, has lost a lot of strength, and if it wants to take over the country, it should first ask Hanover if it is willing to agree.
After purchasing the territories, the Hanoverian Kingdom had already surpassed Prussia in terms of strength, especially in terms of economic advantage.
The solution was to use force.
Don’t even think about it!
Starting a civil war is a dead end, not to mention whether or not you can overpower Hanover, and even if you win, you lose the basis of jurisprudence.
Hanover is a part of the German Federal Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia is not, as long as George I is not stupid, will not allow them to enter the Reichstag to take up seats.
Political infiltration, it looked good. Frederick III was aware that if it were really accomplished, there would be nothing left for him.
The Junker nobility, having regained control of the country, would have pushed for the complete integration of Prussia and Han for their own benefit.
Because of the war, Prussia had offended the Russians badly, and the Hohenzollerns wanted to enter the center, the tsarist government would certainly not agree.
Prussia and Han were both small countries, and the merger was only a medium-sized country, and the military could only grow when the country was strong. Unable to get into the center, it would have to be scrapped.
In this respect, the military Junker is the true foundation of a strong country, their interests are too tightly tied to the country.
In order to avoid the worst, Frederick III had to carry out a political reshuffle just after he succeeded to the throne, taking advantage of the failure of the war to rebalance the forces.
The Royal Palace in Berlin
Minister of War von Rothwald handed up a document and said, “Your Majesty, this is the army integration plan drafted by the Ministry of War.
According to the plan, after the integration is completed we will keep the establishment of 3 infantry divisions, a police division, 2 cavalry regiments, and 2 artillery regiments, and in peacetime these units will only retain half of their numbers, for a total strength of 23,000 men.”
The total strength after integration was less than one-tenth of what it had been before the war, and this plan would have caused an uproar if it had been circulated.
There was no way around it; this was the price of defeat. The government was in financial difficulties, and in order to cut down on expenses, it had to take the army to task.
Von Rothwald, who presided over this disarmament, was also a member of the Junker nobility, but he was an alternative in the army, a staunch anti-war faction.
Before the war, the anti-war faction was weak and had little say in politics; after the war, the situation was fundamentally reversed, and anti-warism prevailed throughout Europe, with Prussia being no exception.
Against this background, Frederick III took the opportunity to promote a large number of anti-war activists and began to suppress the military forces.
Receiving the document, Frederick III casually flipped through a few pages and asked, “The plan is very good, just can it be realized?”
Even a good plan, but also to be able to complete before counting, otherwise the plan is always a plan.
Prussian military is too strong, even if the opportunity to use the defeat to pursue the blame, the military top management changed again, still can not change the situation of military power.
Minister of War Von Rothwald: “It should not be too much of a problem, now that there is a strong anti-war sentiment in the country, we can use public opinion pressure to make the military give in.
In order for the plan to be implemented smoothly, we still need Your Majesty to step in and lobby those few highly respected generals, asking them to step in and calm the military down.”
Frederick III nodded helplessly, trying to get the military bigwigs to agree to disarmament was not an easy task.
It was just that it had to be done even if it was difficult, without bringing down the military expenses, financial bankruptcy was a matter of time.
Frederick III couldn’t help but want to question the Russians, why didn’t they use the treaty to limit the number of Prussian troops?
If it had been agreed upon in the treaty, there would have been no need to go to such trouble. The war was fought by the military, and they had to take responsibility for losing the war, so everyone had to admit it.
Prime Minister Leo von Caprivi: “Your Majesty, it is better to slow down the issue of disarmament than to rush it.
It’s best to give the officers and soldiers a vacation first, exposing them to anti-war ideas, and I believe most will understand.
The damage caused by this war is too great, the domestic economy has been hit hard, and the unemployment rate is very high. In recent times, a lot of people have emigrated and left.
As of now, the total population of the country has dropped to 7,368,000, and this number continues to fall.
Sociologists estimate that even if there were no emigrants leaving, we would still be in negative population growth within the next five years.
In order to restore the economy and avoid a massive loss of population, the government plans to give tax cuts to some of the businesses and people in the country to reduce the pressure on everyone’s lives.”
Tax cuts were naturally good, the problem was that the finances were hurting. The war was over, but the huge debt was still there.
In order to maintain a continental army, the Kingdom of Prussia’s taxes have always been high, and the population’s standard of living has been at the bottom of the German region for years.
When the economic situation was good, it could still be maintained. When the economic situation worsened, it became unsustainable for the general population.
Luckily, there was still the path of emigration available, or else everyone would have had to revolutionize, so stopping the emigrants from leaving was out of the question.
If we want everyone to stay, we can only restore the economy, increase employment and ease the burden of living on the general public.
After a few moments of contemplation, Frederick III: “I’m afraid tax cuts alone are not enough, people still can’t live without jobs.
It is imperative to solve the employment problem of the people. If you can’t, then give out relief food.
The trauma of the war is too great, once the economy recovers, the number of laborers in the country will definitely be insufficient, we must retain as many people as possible.
If the government doesn’t have money, then go to the fiefs and ask for help from Austria, Hanover, Baden, Saxony, all these German states, don’t be afraid to lose face.
We don’t want money either, either in the form of loans or bond issues.
By the way, how are the domestic bond sales going?”
The war had made the Berlin government realize the importance of population, and if it had not been insufficient, the victory or defeat of this Russo-Prussian war would still be unknown.
Finance Minister Fedor Ogood replied, “Very unsatisfactory, up to now a total of 6,180,000,000 marks have been sold.
The general public has no money, and the bankers, skeptical of the government’s ability to repay, are simply not willing to cooperate.
Especially that gang of Jewish vampires, not only did they not cooperate with the government’s bond issue, but they also shorted the marks in the market, leading to a very strong devaluation of our currency.”
Jewish capital was not the only one shorting the Mark; both domestic and foreign capital were involved.
Only the Jewish capital played the most excessive, and there is no backstage, naturally was pushed out to top the tank.
Frederick III slammed the table, not with just, this is the freedom of others. In Europe, private property is sacrosanct and cannot be forced to buy.
But shorting the Mark is too much, this is shaking the foundation of the Kingdom of Prussia. Once the Mark’s credit collapses, the Berlin government is finished.
Having just suffered a defeat, the people couldn’t tolerate another instance of their property being turned into scrap paper.
Frederick III said fiercely, “Investigate! No matter who is manipulating, these black hands must be dug out!”
The people looked at each other as if they had a heart to heart, and all of a sudden they knew what to do next.
“Anti-Semitism” is a mandatory lesson for European monarchs, and can be traced back more than a thousand years. When monarchs ran out of money, they borrowed from the Jews, and when they couldn’t pay them back, they were anti-Semitic.
Now the Berlin government’s finances are obviously not going to hold up, and if they can’t find a way to cut back on their spending, it’s only a matter of time before they go bankrupt.
The core of cost-cutting is disarmament, but open source is not so simple. If you want to make a fortune in the short term, you can only cut leeks.
It so happens that at this time someone shorted the Mark, giving the Berlin government an excuse to do it.
(End of chapter)